


ain't got no choice (but I'd still choose you)

by jdphoenix



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 22:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4893946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Josh? Chris? If that’s one of you guys under there, you better knock it off right now.”</p>
<p>That ugly old mask tips to one side. “No such luck. And yes, this is a game. One with very real consequences.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	ain't got no choice (but I'd still choose you)

**Author's Note:**

> Shineyma prompted: "Guaranteed for at least three hostages, or your money back!"
> 
> AU where (SPOILER) there are no wendigos and all the red herrings and clues Josh planted about a crazy old dude with a grudge are true.

It’s late by the time they make the guest cabin. They stopped like three times to warm up along the way - just a little bit of pre-show action - and then … nothing. There’s no lights, no fire, and Jess is still pissed about him scaring her back there. Which is _totally unfair_ ; she started it!

So they talk, which is fine. Mike likes Jess, likes talking with her as much as he likes doing anything else - well, almost as much. He’s pretty sure once they get to the main event here, that’s gonna shoot up to the top of his list. Which is why he’s pretty damn pissed when her missing phone (it’s not his fault it fell out of her pocket) breaks the mood when they’re finally getting somewhere. It’s not much comfort that she’s even angrier than he is, but he just might get some angry sex out of it and that’s gotta be fun, right?

He can hear the door hitting the wall when she throws it open in the next room. He’d been expecting a pretty pissed off rant, but there’s nothing.

God, she can’t have seriously gone looking for the guys, can she? It’s freezing out there and she’s not even wearing her coat.

“Jess, come on,” he calls. Memories of last year are way too fresh in his mind. She’d never be that stupid to go out alone like that, would she?

Fear - stupid, silly fear - has him half-jogging around the corner. He dropped her jacket in front of the couch, he’ll detour around on his way out the door and then find her and warm her up. Yeah, still totally salvageable.

Only he doesn’t need to find her. Momentum carries him to the edge of the firelight, but his feet don’t manage to go much further. Jess is standing in the doorway, snow catching in one of her braids and on her arm. He can’t quite make out her expression, what with the gloved hand blocking the lower half of her face, but her eyes look scared. Mike doesn’t blame her, he’d be scared too if there was a guy in a clown mask holding a knife to his throat. ( _A guy in a clown mask holding a knife to her throat? What?_ What the fuck is even going on?) Hell, he _is_ scared and he’s got a whole couch and half the room between him and the guy.

“Hello, Michael,” the psycho - because yeah, non-psycho people do not do this sort of thing - says in a deep, gravelly voice that has Jess shaking.

There are a lot of words on the tip of Mike’s tongue - _fuck_ and _shit_ are really duking it out, but there are other ones too like _“how do you know my name”_ and _“what the hell, man.”_ What comes out though is, “Let her go.”

“I’m afraid that’s not how this game works, Michael.”

“Game?” Yeah, this is getting worse by the second. When did their sexcapade in the mountains turn into a slasher flick? Weren’t he and Jess just going at it on the couch like two minutes ago? He licks his lips. “Josh? Chris? If that’s one of you guys under there, you better knock it off right now.”

That ugly old mask tips to one side. “No such luck. And yes, this is a game. One with very real consequences.” The arm slung tight around Jess’s middle tightens. “Jessica, honey? Give Michael your phone. There’s something on it he needs to see.”

The freak forces Jess forward so she can hand it over the back of the couch. Her hand is shaking.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Mike says. He tries to catch her hand, to wrap his around hers so she knows he’s still here for her, but the asshole pulls her away before he can do more than touch her.

“Now now, be a good boy,” the freak says. “Photos.” He nods, and Mike can’t quite tell through the mask, but he figures it’s to the phone.

Reluctantly, Mike takes his eyes off Jess to look. Far as Mike knows, the last photo on Jess’ phone is the one he took when they left the cabin, but there are more now. He grips the phone tight to hide his shaking fingers as he opens the first one. It’s Sam, in the bath, and it doesn’t look like she has any idea there’s someone taking her picture. The one after that is Josh and Ashley tied up in front of - shit, is that a buzz saw? And then there’s Emily and Matt, tied to chairs with - oh good, more saws - hanging over their heads and a gun between them. Sam again, wearing nothing but a towel and tied to a chair. She’s knocked out cold, so at least she doesn’t know yet how fucked she is.

“Where’s Chris?” Mike asks before he can think better of it.

“Sleeping. I hit him a little harder than I should have, he’ll be out for a while.”

Jess makes a little sound and Mike looks up. The freak’s got his head resting on top of hers. It’d look loving without the mask and makes Mike feel sick.

“Which is why I came up here to see the two of you. I figured I’d give you a chance to get in on the action.”

“For the record, we wouldn’t have minded missing it.”

Jess stops looking scared out of her mind for the first time to give him a look that very clearly asks _what the hell_. Mike honestly doesn’t have an answer for that. It just came out! Is this what it’s like to be the good guy going up against the villain in a movie? Does bullshit bravado you don’t even feel just start coming out because otherwise you’re gonna start screaming and running around like some sort of mental case?

Yeah, snarky is a lot easier. Mike can go with that.

“You get a choice, Mike,” the freak says. The knife slides along Jess’ neck, catching the firelight as it moves. “I’m gonna kill your friends, but I don’t have to kill all of them. I don’t have to kill _you_. You let me take pretty Jessica out of here and you can survive to call the cops in the morning.”

Mike keeps his eyes locked on Jess’. He’s never gonna do that. “And if I don’t?”

“Then I take you.”

Mike knows what to say, something cool like _you think you can_ , but he can’t get the words out. Maybe it’s just the mask, but something about this guy has him thinking the freak really _can_.

He’s gotta _think_. It’s tough with the couch where he was just making out with Jess between them, with a knife to her _fucking throat_ , but he’s not gonna be able to find a way out of this if he can’t think. “So what’re you saying? What’s the choice? Because I’m telling you, asshole, I’m not seeing one here.”

The freak lets out a dragging sigh. “I suppose,” he says slowly, “a pretty young girl, with a voice that I’m sure will just _sing_ once I get going on her, is worth more than you.” That arm wrapped around her middle lowers and the hand caresses from her ribs down to her hip. She squirms, trying to escape from the touch without cutting herself on the knife.

“You sick fuck!” Mike takes an involuntary step forward.

“Ah ah ah.” The knife handle lifts, and Mike doesn’t know much about knives, but he’s pretty sure this angle is gonna make it a lot easier to kill Jess.

“Okay, okay.” Mike raises his hands and takes a step back, much as it pains him to move away from Jess while she’s looking like that. She’s paler than he’s ever seen her and there are tears leaking from her eyes. This guy so has to die.

The guy lifts three fingers from around the handle of the knife and it’s heart stopping to see Jess’ life balanced between his thumb and index finger. “One girlfriend? Guaranteed for at least three hostages or your money back.” He glances at Jess. “Well, I might have to give it to you in change.”

Mike still doesn’t know what the fuck to do. It’s not like he’s got some secret ninja skills he can bust out against this guy. He doesn’t even know if the kitchen in this place is stocked with knives - not that he knows how to fight with one anyway. There’s _nothing_ \- except the gun.

He freezes, afraid if he doesn’t hold himself perfectly still, he’ll look towards it. He put it back, right? He thinks he can see it out of the corner of his eye. Just a few feet away.

“I don’t have all night, Michael. Chris won’t sleep forever and you really don’t want him waking up without anyone there.”

“How do I even know you’re telling the truth?” Mike demands, throwing his arms wide as he takes another step back. It’s to give him a better angle. If he’s gonna run for the gun, he can’t do it with this guy at his back. “How do I even know any of the others are still alive?”

“That’s why it’s a game, Michael. You have to decide if I’m bluffing.”

Right. A game. A twisted ass game that Mike has like zero chance of winning. “Jess,” he says. There’s something he should say here - something reassuring or meaningful in case he fucks this up. He doesn’t know what it is though. “Take me.”

Jess screams against the hand still tight over her mouth. She tries to fight against the freak and for half a second Mike thinks she might’ve gotten away, but he was only letting her go so he could - Mike doesn’t know. He’s running flat-out for the wall and the gun. It’s easy, familiar. He knows how to hold a rifle, has been up here a hundred times with Chris and Josh and Matt, learning proper firearm procedure from Mr. Washington. “A man should know how to protect himself,” Josh’s dad always said. Well, now’s the time.

He settles the rifle at his shoulder as he turns. There’s a loud crack and thump and Jess is crying out. She’s on the floor. Her head is bleeding. She’s fucking _bleeding_. Mike never understood the whole seeing red thing before, but when he catches sight of Jess’ blood in her hair and on the hands she holds up to defend herself, he thinks he gets it.

“Mike!” she wails.

The freak really must have a hard on for her because it seems like he’s forgotten about Mike until Jess says his name. Mike fires, but the asshole’s already running. Blood splatters across the kitchen and the guy nearly goes skidding into the far wall, manages to keep his feet under him though as he rounds the corner and Mike’s hot on his trail, sees him head into the bedroom.

Mike plants his feet in the doorway, brings the gun up just in time to see the freak flying through the shattered window. The gun jams.

“Fuck!”

The door.

The door is still wide open, that guy-

It slams shut and for the three steps it takes to reach the living room all Mike can think is _jessjessjess_. And there she is. Leaning against the door, tears and blood staining her beautiful face. But she’s okay and that fuck is gone and Mike doesn’t know how but somehow he ends up holding her and they’re on the floor and she’s crying and she’s okay, she’s okay, she’s fucking okay.

He might be saying that last part out loud but he can’t be fucked to care.

“Jesus, I thought-” He doesn’t know what he thought. He doesn’t even know what _happened_.

“I was so scared,” Jess says. She’s got her hands fisted in his shirt and her face against his chest like she’s hiding from the monsters. Mike doesn’t blame her.

There’s a distant thought in his head that the others are in some serious shit, but he got the guy. He doesn’t have to turn his head to the kitchen to see the blood, he can smell it, sweet and acrid on the air. So the bad guy’s bleeding - hopefully bleeding _out_ \- and Jess is safe in his arms.

“Chris shouldn’t wake up alone.” That’s what the guy said. He might’ve been telling the truth.

Jess nods into his chest. Her breathing’s evening out and so’s his. In a few minutes they’ll be good to stand up, good to figure out just what to do next. Right now, he wraps his arms a little tighter around Jess even though it means letting go of the gun.

“I’m never gonna let that bastard touch you again,” he says into her hair.

One of her arms wraps around his chest, while the other snakes over his shoulder. Yeah, they’ll be okay. Just a couple more minutes.

 


End file.
